Rolling along

Talking a blue streak with the High Rollers

by Michael Caito

THE HIGHROLLERS

The new Dave Howard and the High Rollers release, Ride Past Midnight (Salad), is both relief and reward for those blues and roots-rock fans familiar with the band's respected position among area true blue enthusiasts. Guitarist Tom Ferraro, bassist Chicago Vin Earnshaw, drummer Mike LaBelle and singer/harmonicist Howard gathered at Nick-A-Nee's to speak of the record, blues trends, misconceptions, and bad blues bands.

Q: Was working with Joe Moody since he re-opened Danger different than your last session there?

Tom: It was easier before because he had a phone. Now you have to put the Bat Signal out in the sky. He has a lotta patience.

Q: So there were tons of takes?

Dave: No, actually I did all my stuff basically in one take, with a coupla things when I went flat I sang over a note or two. All my harp in two hours and vocals in two hours.

Tom: Mike, who produced, was really into trying different things like mike techniques.

Q: Describe the closing instrumental, "Wray-Gunn."

Tom: Everybody thinks that's a surf tune, but it's really nothing like a surf tune. I've had that riff for like a hundred years. We went in more with the Link Wray attitude than to try to be like the Ventures or Dick Dale. It's a more rooted sound than surf, plus no fast picking.

Dave: The younger kids that understand nothing love that cut. I always liked surf. Whether it's popular or comes and goes, who gives a fuck?

Q: Are the blues trend-proof?

Dave: Yes it is, but it bottles you into a secular thing where your market is limited also. It's good but it's bad.

Tom: There's a lotta bad blues bands, and it seems an overwhelming amount of bad lately.

Dave: Some think it's not too complicated: "We can do this. We know the I-IV-V arrangements so we'll run out and throw a band together."

Mike: And they burn out the rooms. The club owners say, "Oh no, we're not hiring blues." The real roots bands haven't even gotten in the room yet.

Tom: Baby Ray Vaughans, or they wanna be the Blues Brothers. They go work for low money, they'll bring their friends and family to the club the first coupla times, then they burn out. Then a legitimate band that does it, the owners say, "Ohhhh, no blues bands. That doesn't work. We're gonna stick with karaoke." It gets a little tough. It goes back to the public. I would never say we're a blues band or a rock band, and I'll say we're a roots rock band and they don't know what that is.

Dave: It's like the stuff they did in the late '50s but with a little more edge to it.

Tom: You can't say, "Did you ever hear the Blasters? The Paladins? The Red Devils? You can't get past that because it's "No, no and no."

Dave: Dave Alvin draws 40 people in Providence. Here's a fucking genius songwriter, unbelievable guitar player, one of the best artists this country has.

Tom: There's always gonna be a place. Looking at Providence, a lotta people are saying it's not as good as it was. There were all these stories back the late '70s and '80s. People had this image that you could come off a Greyhound bus and there would be blues clubs lining the streets.

Q: Several songs speak of time's passage.

Dave: In my younger days we wouldn't dream of going to a bar with a DJ. Nowadays people will pay five bucks.

Mike: We all know where we've been and we take everything we've done and put it into our music today, whether it be heavy metal to folk. It's there, but it's just scrambled eggs. We've gained rather than lost.

Q: Tom, describe the ones you co-wrote.

Tom: "Sweet Petite" is just straight swing, late '40s jump. Straight comping, the band playing real straight. "Dirty Word Called Time" is a hard-driving shuffle. "Good to Go" is a straight rock and roll, a little bit of a departure for us, but it's a mix of things we all listen to. One night I came in here and saw a cool-lookin' CD Jimmy Rivers and the Cherokees. It was from the early '60s, all Charlie Christian-style guitar, who played with Benny Goodman. He's an influence on anybody who wanted to play swing, and always has influenced my approach to blues and swing. Lotta guys go to play that stuff and end up just playing blues licks fast.

Dave: Well, we're lucky enough to have Duke as a reference.

Tom: To this day, it just stops there. Just see him and that's all you've gotta know. I'll tell guitar players, "Look, just go see Duke, and go home. Go buy all his records and spend a lot of time learning that because he can play everything."

Q: Are Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl bored with the blues?

Tom: Duke is different than Ronnie. Duke has always played that but people don't know it because he never released it. He just started getting in with an upright player, Marty Ballou is great, his band is great, he's got horns. And you know what? I heard him play all the same stuff in the late '70s and it's the same stuff. He's better now -- more refined -- but it's not like he woke up one day and said . . . .

Dave: I don't think they're happy, though, playing the straight blues. Guys like Ronnie, they want more, wanna be considered deeper than that, whereas I don't feel any necessity at all to be any deeper than that. That's about as deep as I go. And I like to rock out. Ronnie hates rock and roll, though Duke can play the rock and roll and he will on occasion. But I don't wanna outgrow that. That's youth, man.

Q: The record is dedicated to Dobbs. What's Paul Murphy's favorite song on it and why?

Tom: Knowing Paul, he was the type of guy who would find something he liked in all the tunes. There's a guy could play anything, too.

Mike: One of the most positive-thinking people I ever met.

Chicago Vin: If anything, he would've liked "Sweet Petite."

Tom: Little jazzier, more changes compared to a straight blues progression. Getting together with Paul when I was fortunate enough to sit down with him, he'd never neglect to play that stuff. He'd show me how to do this and this. That's the whole idea of the record being for Paul.

Q: Vin, there was some table disagreement about Ronnie and Duke and whether they were bored with blues, and Dave mentioned he could never stop playing rock and roll.

Vin: I invented rock and roll. My life is on the rocks and I've gotta roll.

Q: Was your title song "Ride Past Midnight" about one event?

Vin: The original was nothing like that. It was originally a rockabilly song. I guess it's my tribute to William Burroughs . . . even one of the lines is one of his quotes.

Tom: I remember when Vinny brought that down. It wasn't like, "Well, it has to be exactly this way or I'm gonna take my ball and go home." We ended up putting in a whole different turnaround. Nobody's saying "veto, veto."

Q: Are the blues trend-proof?

Vin: It comes and goes but has always been there. Some jump on the bandwagon and it gets a little bigger, but it's never gone away. Last time was Stevie and the T-Birds.

Q: Ten years ago someone tells you in a decade there's a new High Rollers record with you on it. What would you have told them?

Vin: Did they release it posthumously?

Dave Howard and the High Rollers appear with Paul Geremia, the Smoking Jackets, Michelle Willson, Tom Sanders & the Hornets, John "Crawlin' Snake" Mac, Shirley Lewis and Johnny and the East Coast Rockers at the first Blues Blast at Stepping Stone Ranch in Escoheag on Saturday. They play Bootlegger's every Thursday.

STARS & BARS. Jud Ehrbar's new Reservoir record Pink Machine (Zero Hour) has arrived, infused with some Varnaline-esque pop but grounded in the dark world of electronica. It's greater than the sum of Ehrbar's parts, so fun stuff at the Call on the 20th. Why was Moxy Früvous, who played at Ben & Jerry's Folk, ignored? One of this year's very best is You Will Go to the Moon (Bottom Line). Another year-end best-of candidate: a fortnight 'til Joe Jackson's Heaven & Hell (Sony Classical) is out.